asa

Forms

asa f (plural asas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ansa (“handle”).^[2][3][1] The /n/ was lost before /s/ early: the Appendix Probi already condemns the spoken form asa.^[4] Autoridades saw the word as the Latin one without its /n/, while others derived it from asir, which the Breve diccionario explains the other way round, as a derivative of this noun meaning “to take by the handle”.^[5][6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese asa, Galician asa, Catalan ansa and French anse.^[7][1] Aragonese, Riojan and Navarrese keep ansa, and Álava has a form with initial /n/, also found as Catalan nansa, where it took the /n/ of the indefinite article.^[8][9]

The Latin noun goes back to *ansā (“handle”) and is cognate with ąsa (“handle of a pot”) and ἡνία (hēnía, “reins”).^[10][1] De Vaan reconstructs *h₂ens-h₂- (“handle, grip”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Breve diccionario dates the word to 1050.^[2] Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) places a star “in the handle of the jar”, en la asa dela tinaia.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The General estoria (1272–1275) also uses asas for the small loops that join curtains.^[11] The figurative sense “pretext, occasion” follows the Latin one: Covarrubias records tomar asa “to take occasion”, and Autoridades quotes Mariana for it.^[12][5] In the thieves' cant (germanía) asa meant “ear”, a sense the Academy recorded in 1770.^[13][3] The phrase ser muy del asa “to be a close friend” is in the Academy's dictionary from 1817.^[14] In anatomy the word names curved structures such as the loops of the intestine.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1050 – first record.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario mentions the handle of a jar.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Latin ansa.^[17]
• 1554 – first record from the Americas, jugs with two handles in Puebla.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records tomar asa “to take occasion”.^[12]
• 1770 – the Academy records the cant sense “ear”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology ansa.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A handle: the part, usually curved or ring-shaped, that sticks out of a vessel, basket or tray and is used to hold it: Cogió la jarra por el asa.^[3][1]
2. A pretext or occasion (synonym of asidero).^[3]
3. (anatomy) A curved, loop-shaped structure.^[15][16]
4. (cant, germanía) The ear.^[3][1]

Word family

• asilla
• asir

Related words

• mango
• manija
• manivela
• asidero
• Latin ansa
• Portuguese asa

Usage notes

En asas means “with arms akimbo”, and ser del asa or muy del asa means to be a close friend or partisan of someone.^[3] A separate asa is the juice of several umbelliferous plants, from Medieval Latin asa, and this from a Persian word azā “mastic”, as in asa fétida “asafoetida”.^[3]^(Corriente, Pereira & Vicente 2019|s.v. asa (fétida)) It occurs as assa fetida from 1250 on.^[20][11] A third asa of Granada is the holly, from Latin acer (“maple”).^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. asa
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. asa
4. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 1, 323
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 428
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. asir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. ansa
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. ansa
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. nansa
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. asa
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 226
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 349
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 94
15. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. asa
16. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. asa
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 297
18. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. asa
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 106
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. asa